It has taken some time, more than expected, but with a title referring to a soap opera there’s bound to be some drama involved... Blood, sweat, tears and pride: umi presents Kauli Seadi in Novela das 8.

The last four years Kauli Seadi and his friends have travelled the world in search of wind, waves and action. Many of the sessions they had were captured on film: from HD to camcorder to mobile phone. But what to do with over 400 hours of film? Not something you just edit in the evenings after a day of sailing or doing R&D for your sponsors. Kauli: ‘We had so much footage, of good sessions, fun session, crappy sessions, even a monster session in Jaws. My friend Martin Carvalho, who was initially going to make a film out of it, got crazy with all the hours of tape, especially when his computer crashed and he had to start all over again. I didn’t know what to do, would all these hours of tape just end up in some dusty cabinet? My luck changed when Brendan Pyatt from umi decided to take care of the project. Brendan has been a good friend since he first came to my house in Brazil to do a shoot with me back in 2004 and him and his team worked their way through all these hours of tape.

Now we can finally show the result, brought out in a series of seven fun clips. Since making these series was so dramatic, we decided to call it ‘Novela das 8’, which is the name of the most famous Brazilian soap opera. The subtitle ‘Vale a pena ver de novo’ means it’s worth seeing again, and is a term they use in Brazil for the best novelas, of which they would have a replay because people really liked it. Novela das 8 shows my voyage: different spots, different styles, different gear, one rider.’

We kick-off the series with Maui, the place Kauli describes as his ‘school of life’: ‘Maui is definitely one of the Mecca’s of windsurfing. It’s the place where all pro sailors meet to do photo shoots and train, and I was super happy to be able to go there in 1999 for the first time and sail the famous Hawaiian waves over the corals and caves! My first years I was staying there for over four months at a time to practice, and it helped me a lot because the level of the other sailors was pushing me so much. Maui was my school of life, it was where I learnt to really live on my own, do the things that I never do at home, stuff like cooking, shop for food, clean the house, wash my clothes… So much work man! Luckily I had 30 t-shirts so I could do the washing only once a month haha. I haven’t told this to anyone before, but I learnt to make pasta in Maui. It was what me and Charles Boggis ate every day for four months, pasta with Prego sauce, the only recipe we knew!’

With Novela das 8, umi has a premiere of a new player, by Recast Digital. This player intelligently selects from six video qualities from 450kbps to 3000kbps, spanning a range of video resolutions up to 720p HD. In real-time the player detects the available bandwidth and selects the optimal stream for the bandwidth of the user and will dynamically switch versions as needed without interrupting playback. What this means in English is that you should get the best (full screen) quality possible, so you get the best viewing experience.